


Shards of Glass

by lolcano



Series: We Need New Stories [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Collective trauma, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26243791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolcano/pseuds/lolcano
Summary: Valkyrie comes to terms with her past. Grief is not easy.
Series: We Need New Stories [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/956250





	Shards of Glass

They have a bar here of course and for a while I can almost imagine that I'm back there amidst the reeling chaos of hundreds of creatures from who-knows-what-forsaken corner of the earth, hundreds of people who have never even heard of Asgard. I always liked that about Sakaar - they didn't have any idea who I was. They didn't have any idea what Asgard was. That's what I wanted, really: to not have any idea of what Asgard was. To wipe it all from my memory. All that it was, and all that I am. All that I did. But the truth is I'm Asgardian and I can't run away from it forever.

So here I am.

Ah, gods, but sometimes I still want to forget it.

So I go to the bar and drink. One day I am here at the bar when this women approaches, tall and elegant in a red dress, her long dark braids falling down past her shoulders. At first I think she is like all the other woman who fawn and praise, saying, "Oh you're so brave," They think that I'm a hero. That I'm some sort of saviour. They want me to reassure them. Tell them that everything will be okay. As if I can know that. As if anything can ever be okay. But instead this women asks: "How old are you?"

I didn't answer. "I mean," she says languidly, "You must be ancient, am I right?" Her friend lingers behind her, distraught and apologetic. "The Valkyries existed over a million years ago. You're a legend."

"Hm," I say. I don't know my age, at any rate, even if it is any of her business. Time is strange on Sakaar. "What do you want?" I ask instead. Everyone always wants something.

"I just want to _know_ ," says the woman, "Tell us about our history. The real thing, I mean. Not the lies Odin has fed to us all this time. We want to know the truth. You saw it happen. So tell us. What was Asgard like in the past?"

I don't want to remember.

I don't want to remember, and yet I could never quite forget.

A city soaring with silver spires, prosperous and proud. A market full of brilliant colours, full of food and fabric from across the seven realms. I can see it, even though I've tried so hard to forget it - it is as if I'm there. Being here, sometimes, makes me remember it, because they dress the same, act the same, even if everything is different now. It's the people. It reminds me so much of _back then_.

The people shouting with joy, hurrah hurrah, as the streets resound with the march of soldiers feet as they return from war, their horses shaking braided manes proudly, their armour gleaming in the sunlight, dressed in full regalia. Tribute spilling on the floor of the palace, piles of gold growing higher and higher. Celebration and laughter. The city grows richer, its buildings taller. New buildings reaching to the sky. Sigrun dressed in fine red robes and swirling swirling around and laughing.

Then: burning fire. The looming figure of a woman with antlers. Laughter echoing across expanding darkness. And I don't want to think about it anymore.

"Same as it's always been," I say at last, and finish the rest of my drink in a single gulp. "Now if you'll excuse me..."

And I leave. Running away again, a part of me says. I only wish I could. I can't fully run away, not here, not now, not when the people are so close. Everyone is here on this ship. Asgard is here.

I walk past people in their flowing dresses, long and beautiful like the dresses in the past, all the people in the market with their beautiful dresses watching us march to war. They look at me the same they did then too - with so much hope and expectation. A legend come to life! As if I were a _hero_.

But they don't know that everything is broken. Has been broken. This whole place is like a mirror, a reflection long since shattered. All the small familiar gestures, the way that Asgard was and is and will be, slice into me like a piece of glass. "Tell us about the past," the woman in the red dress had said. Sigrun, wearing a red dress, twirling and laughing. Sigrun, asking, "What have we become." But it was too late. Sigrun, the fog around her like an aureole, falling in front of me and I am alone in guilt and loss and pain and my fingers tighten around the glass until I bleed.

Gods, if only I could forget.

Bodies piled high. Death and fire. The smell of corpses mixed with ashes. We step over the dead, pure white against a blazing darkness. The sound of hoofs trampling strewn bodies. Watch as the corpses piled higher. Our people grow richer. More laughter in the feast halls, whirling silk and opulence. But in the darkness we kill. Women weeping as they are round up in some dark foreign forest, holding children tight. The soft earth covered in pine needles and the blood ran through them like sieves, blood poured into the earth. The earth eats the blood and swallows it whole. It becomes deep dark red, loam-like. Only the edge of a blade separates the living and the dead. It is so easy to slice into flesh. Only the slightest resistance on the blade. You pull and it comes out with a satisfying sloooosh. They fall backwards, to be eaten by maggots and flies. "What are we doing," Sigrun whispers, as we stood over the dead, "What have we become."

What have we become. Legends! Heroes! They look up at me with awe in their eyes, hope in their eyes. As if I'd be able to rescue them from depths their despair. Asgard has perished, but I have returned, a resurrected hero But they don't know how many years we had fought beside her. And how can I ever, _ever_ , tell them, about that?

I can't stand their faces anymore. I want to go back to the bar and drink drink drink until it all disappears, but then I'll have to see their faces, those terrible familiar faces, full of hope and wonder and amazement, all of them _expecting_ things, things I am afraid I cannot give.

I stumble to a storage room full of boxes and sit down, my head in my arms. I didn't even drink that much but I feel dizzy. What should I do? I ask myself. Leave? Run away, like you did before? I can't keep running, I can't keep pretending that it never happened. But it hurts so much. "Tell us what Asgard was like in the past!" How can I tell you?! How can you bear to hear the truth? Let time wash it all away. Let them forget. It would be a mercy.

There is a crashing noise behind me. I look and there is a little girl standing in front of the fallen boxes. She quickly sets them upright again, her dark disheveled hair falling over her face. The boxes are almost as large as she is.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her peevishly, and at my voice her face makes an O of surprise. She runs away and hides.

But then: a little while later she peeks out from behind the boxes, and immediately hides again when our eyes met. Laughter pours out. She peeks out again.

A little girl shouldn't be here by her own. I tell her so. But she just laughs and hides again. Eventually, when it becomes clear that I wasn’t going to stop her, she climbs onto the boxes and started jumping one to another. Up and up she goes, climbing to precarious heights. Then she jumps down, container to container, giggling like a maniac. Then she runs up and jumps again. After everything, here she was playing and laughing. Did she even understand what had happened? That her home had been destroyed? Did it even matter? This was her reality. And here she was, playing and laughing.

*-*-*-*

This is her Asgard, not mine, I think. This is her home, not mine. No matter how much the memories surge up and try to engulf me, this is not the same place that I left.

And when she peeks behind the boxes and smiles at me, she doesn't see the past, only what I am. And when I look at her, I don't see the past, but only what could be.

So I pull myself up again. I want her world to be bright and beautiful, to be different than my own. I want to build a future for her.

I meet with Thor and the others and we discuss what we can do. We come up with great schemes, new hopes. We carefully plan for the future. Looking forward, I almost forget to look back.

Together we begin some cultural project initiative. It's supposed to boost morale, and I go around person to person, asking if they would like to participate.

It is then I see the girl again.

She is sitting next to a woman, her mother, perhaps. They look similar. The woman’s hair is dirty and uncombed. She does not seem to move. She stares into the distance. And next to her is the little girl, who sits on her lap and tends her like a doll. "Eat, mama" she says, and places a morsel of food in her mothers hand. But the woman pushes the food away listlessly. "Eat, mama," the child insists. At last the woman takes a few measly bites and her daughter hugs her and pats her on the head, as if she were the mother and the woman the child.

"She's been like this ever since she got to the sanctuary," a nearby woman tells me softly, "I don't know what to do."

People gather around me. They have been watching the girl for some time, feeding her and caring for her in the absence of her mother. Her mother, who is right there.

"What happened?" I ask. They look at each other sadly.

"I don't know the details," one says, "But she had three children before. Now, there's only the girl."

"She had to choose," another adds, "There were three children, but she could only take one. So she left the other two behind to die."

"How can any mother make that choice?" someone says sympathetically.

"So what? We've all lost something," another says harshly, "She can't fall apart like this. What about the girl?"

I look at the woman, broken with grief. Her eyes are blank as she holds her daughter close. She is broken, like glass. They are all broken, here, I realize.

And they look at me as if I can put her back together again. Don’t they realize I am broken too?

"Can't you do something?" they ask me, "Can't you tell her that everything will be okay?"

"No," I say, "No, it's not going to be okay."

I am tired of pretending it would be. I kneel down in front of the woman, force her to look at me. She resists, her gaze drifting past me, but I don't let go.

“You,” I say, “You think it would be better if you had died, is that it? You think _you_ should have died, and not your children. Isn’t that right? Let me tell you something. I killed a child once. Once on a campaign in a far away land. There was a little girl who threw rocks at us. She hid in the bushes and tried to attack us as we came into her village. We killed that girl. The whole village too."

My voice turns harsh. I am speaking now without even thinking, without being able to stop. The words tear themselves out of me, burn out of me, as if they were hot coals. "It was Hela who ordered it, but it was us who carried it out. We carried out all her orders, all of them. We, the Valkyrie, the brave protectors of Asgard. Until at last, we didn't. But then it was too late. You think that you killed your children? If anyone is guilty, then it's me."

There is a terrifying silence. No one dares to speak. I didn't think anyone could speak. Words do not exist anymore. Instead there is something else, deep and primal churning in the air between us, sinking its nails into our flesh and burning deep inside our stomachs. Holding us.

Gods, I'm so tired.

They all watch me. All those faces. They look down at me with pity, with horror. Gone is that unbearable gaze of hope and expectation, and I’m glad for it. Pity me, for I am pitiable.

"It was Hela," someone says, "Not you. It was Hela."

“Me… Hela… It doesn’t make a difference. Nothing can bring them back.”

“But _you_ came back,” someone says, “That has to be worth something. We’d all be dead, if it weren’t for you.”

I just laugh. I don’t know what else to do. What else to say. I don’t know if I believe her. It’s easy to blame Hela, but did my actions mean nothing then? What about me? All the evil we’ve done, do we have to live with the rest of our lives? Can it never be fixed?

"My husband..." a woman says suddenly, "when he saw what Hela was doing, he didn't try to oppose her. He joined her army. He swore allegiance to her. And because of that I wasn't harmed."

"I hid, right away," says another, "I'm a healer. I should have stayed, I should have helped. But I was too afraid. The very first night Hela came, I went into my basement curled up like sniveling idiot."

"Sometimes, I still dream of it," says the woman. They all turn to her, surprised to her speak. Her voice is hollow, but there is something in her eyes that wasn’t there before. "It's like I can see it, right in front of me. All three of them. I thought… I thought the older ones might be able to make it. But should I have… I should have left earlier I should have…”

And she cries. She cries so loudly it is almost obscene, shrieking, howling, wailing, flailing her arms and pounding the floor. We have all been so quiet on this ship, trying to hold ourselves all together, to be strong, to be whole, but now, with her anguished cries it all seems to break loose. Our silence shatters.

“Why?!” she screams, “Why?! Why them, and not me? Why can’t I… I can’t… I can’t… Why? How?!! Why did this happen?”

The sobs heave through her body, violent and shivering. And suddenly we all start to cry. Slowly at first, then it grows, until snot is pouring down our noises and we’re all crying. Even me. I’d grown sick of crying, but I cry now anyways.

Because it isn’t ever going to be okay. The things that we went through, it will never be okay. The things that I did. But we all know this. We understand this. The horror of it all. And I realize that this place I am in – it is not just mine or theirs – it is all of us. It is my Asgard, and it is their Asgard, bound together in mutual pain. We are like mirrors of grief, broken and shattered, reflecting each other and we lean in on each other and can do nothing but cry out at the unfairness of it all.

“They’re never coming back,” the woman sobs, “Mina, Axel, they’re never coming back.”

“But you can come back,” I tell her, “It’s not too late for you to come back. It’s never too late.” 

I place her child on her lap, and she sees the girl for the first time, really sees her, perhaps the first time since Asgard was destroyed.

“Kanda…Kanda..” she cries, scooping up her daughter in her arms, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Mama,” Kanda cries, “You’re here!”

Her mother kisses her child, her hair, her hands, her cheeks, “Kanda, I’m so sorry,” she repeats.

“It’s okay Mama,” the girl says bravely, “I love you, I love you.”

Later on, I find the woman in the red dress. I tell her, in broken pieces, what Asgard once was like. The pieces don’t seem so sharp anymore, I think because now the cracks are part of me. Of all of us.

“Thank you,” says the woman, when I am done.

Together, we pick up the pieces and glue them, as best as we can, back together.

**Author's Note:**

> The woman in the red dress is Olga from the previous fic in this series. I guess in retrospect, both of these stories deal with similar themes. But whatever.


End file.
